PMDF's Lotus Notes channels have two cooperating components.

The first component is the Lotus Notes channel on the PMDF host system (similar to other PMDF-LAN channels). The Lotus Notes channel converts messages to and from the RFC 822 and MIME message formats used by PMDF to a format understandable by the second component.

The second component consists of Process Software supplied PMDF Notes Gateway Server Add-ins, (i.e., the PNGATECIN and PNGATECOUT programs).⁶ These run under the control of the Lotus Notes server on a PC server system such as an NT or OS/2 system. The PMDF Notes Gateway Server Add-in PNGATECIN makes Lotus Notes Messaging API calls to import PMDF messages into Lotus Notes, and similarly PNGATECOUT exports from Lotus Notes those messages destined for PMDF.

The PMDF Notes Gateway Server Add-ins communicate directly with the PMDF Notes channel programs over TCP/IP. This obviates any need for file sharing or file transfer protocols between the Notes system and the PMDF system.

The Lotus Notes channel program attempts to convert as much of MIME as possible to formats Lotus Notes can understand. Limitations of Lotus Notes on the one hand and the proprietary nature of Lotus Notes on the other hand, however, can make a complete conversion impossible, so in some cases conversion will be limited in scope. As another alternative, however, the Lotus Notes channel has an option to "tunnel" Notes documents through SMTP. This is achieved by sending a MIME multipart/alternative part containing both a text/plain version of the document being sent and a application/x-pmdf-notes-doc body part containing a "tunnelled" full, original version of the Lotus Notes document. Non-Lotus Notes recipients can then read the plain text version, whereas Lotus Notes recipients can utilize the full, original Notes document.